Justifiably embittered by the confiscation of her home in 1861 by the federal government, which promptly buried Union soldiers (after 1st Manassas) around the perimeter of the house so that no one would ever wish to live there again, Mrs. Lee made this famous remark to an interrogator who had asked what she would do with all those graves if she should ever get her home back. 

“My dear, I would smooth them over and plant my flowers.” 

Arlington Plantation is now Arlington National Cemetery